Hello's and Goodbye's

Yesterday afternoon Charlton played their final match of a very disappointing season. Apart from a screamer by Frederico Bessone that rocketed off the crossbar, and more than likely fractured it in the process,  was of very few talking points. A 0-0 draw was an appropriate scoreline to finish with and sums the last nine months up a treat.

One talking point had to be possibly the last Charlton appearance of Jon Fortune. It's always sad to see any player stretchered off with a major injury and it appears to be Jon's Achilles which has got to be one of the most painful of things to endure. I'm sure everybody wishes him a speedy recovery and back playing as soon as possible whichever club shirt he'll be wearing.

Another event to note was the full debut of Callum Harriott. A young player who shows great promise for next season. Guessing by recent weeks, i expect that he is going to feature heavily in Chris Powell's plans.
I'm hoping that John Sullivan will be as well. I had the pleasure of chatting to John's parents on the train from SE7 back to London Bridge. His time at Millwall has come to an end and he's hoping to discuss terms with the Addicks upon return from holiday. Of three or four clubs interested, Charlton are by far and away his first choice. If rumours about Rob Elliot and Newcastle are true, of which i stress i have no idea, we may well need a new number one.

So as i clapped the squad off from their lap of honour, or more to the point, their lap of appreciation to the loyal support, i was saying goodbye to some for three months and some for good. There were however, a lot of hello's as well though yesterday.

Before the match myself and Heidi arrived at The Rose of Denmark for a pre match drink or five. The picture at the top of this article shows how many of the CAFC twitter folk got together. It was wonderful to put faces to people i chat to every day, yet still very bizarre to all meet as friends without recognizing anyone.That's social networks for you. This is the modern age! Special mention must go to Bruce who i discovered went to the same school as me in Wallington, albeit ten years earlier. Another high was bumping into Mick Gebbett after the match. The name will be familiar to many of you as he was one of the supporters elected to the board of directors many years ago. It had been a long long time since I'd seen him and it was great to catch up with such a lovely bloke. It was as if no time had passed, but thinking about it, probably seven or eight years.

A special mention to finish must go to the Hartlepool supporters. They took the challenge of fancy dress at your clubs last away game to a whole new level with a group of about thirty (educated guess?) Oompa Loompas. It was a special sight to see them with some Santa's (no idea why before you ask) bouncing in the Jimmy Seed stand arm in arm. Almost as funny was Heidi asking me why they had brought so many members of the boys brigade to the game. Two of them were even kind enough to have their photo taken with a certain drunk Londoner who pounced on them at London Bridge. Great lads!!!

Yesterday was a truly wonderful day. A big thanks to Dave Lockwood and Tommy Chuckle. You guys know why. Today however i have paid the price. I got to church on time but Sunday School was very very hard work.................

He comes from Portugal

Over the past few months, part of my regular Sunday evening schedule has been to listen to CharltonLive on the world famous and rather unstable CAFC Player.
Without chancing the prospect of their heads swelling to an even larger size, the show makes pretty good listening. Post match analysis, interviews with Charlton legends (and unsung heroes), and to top it off, general silliness with listener/supporter participation. Seven till nine on a Sunday evening is now a hotly contested spot with the likes of Lewis and co. struggling to get my vote.
Last night, the crew pulled off a real humdinger of a show. It was the annual player of the year awards held in crossbars at The Valley. The show was broadcasting from the event letting us that were too tight/lazy/busy, delete as appropriate, the opportunity to hear the events unfold.
After a slightly shaky start with the sound quality we got to hear everything as it happened including Benno's eating habits! Then to top it off, a succession of interviews with members of the playing squad AND Sir Chris Powell himself. In the end the show kept going until they ran out of interviewees or they were all too drunk to make sense. Best bit of three hours radio all in all.

There had been many people, i won't call them fans, on twitter moaning about the event. They said none of the players deserved recognition, that the event should be cancelled and then mocked the results.
As far as I'm concerned, the players know just as well as us how poor the season has been. We won't concentrate on excuses, suffice to say, none of those players stepped onto the park deliberately not putting in a shift. We saw glimpses of what can be achieved and although things weren't wonderful, I'm still thankful for what we do have. I've been a Charlton supporter since the nomad days. League position isn't everything even if sometimes it does seem like it. And last night they proved what genuinely nice gents they are. These guys Saturday evenings are as depressing as ours when it's all gone horribly wrong on the pitch that afternoon.

So congratulations to Jose Semedo. I felt he deserved it, and i loved hearing him declare live on air that he hated the spanners. The evening turned into an absolute success, nobody in attendance would have said the players didn't deserve the night. Next year I'll make the time to get there, and hopefully it will be very hard to pick one player out of a promotion winning squad.

Second best at Bescot

It was kind of ironic that a town famed for it's old trolleybus service, would be the destination of a coach load of Addicks in fancy dress. We took Sonic the hedgehog, a penguin, a Mexican and even Pamela Anderson who has certainly let herself go of late. Judging by the defending for Walsall's first goal, we even had someone dressed as a Charlton full back.

Only one change to our starting line up was a return for the birthday boy, Robbie Elliot, recalled to replace the loanee John Sullivan.
A bright start saw Paul Benson hit the woodwork after only four minutes. That along with his header that went just over the bar in the second half were to be our best two opportunities of the game.
Walsall, to give them credit, looked far more up for it as you would expect for a side fighting for League One survival. They did appear to be under the instruction of shoot on sight. Their first goal however was almost passed around the keeper after a nightmare in the Charlton rear guard. William Grigg slotted home to send the home fans wild. A real sense of belief was evident in their play after that and the experienced Jon Macken up front was proving a real handful, as was Matthew Richards in the middle.
The second and final blow came from a certain Julian Gray. Yes another ex Palace player rubbing our nose in it. After a lot of stick from the travelling five hundred Addicks, he certainly let us know he'd scored!

So where does this leave the table? Well, we are now in 58th place in England. A lowly 14th in our division. Leyton Orient's defeat at home to Tranmere has killed off their hopes of a play off spot. Bournemouth and the franchise now guaranteed top six finishes. Results in the Championship confirm that Scunthorpe and Sheffield United will join Preston in division three with us next season. Once again Palace have survived. Unless of course the FA can find a way of stripping them of ten or so points for some reason or another.
Bristol Rovers look as good as down with their awful goal difference, to the delight of many from SE7. Plymouth have a game in hand but that's entertaining Southampton on Monday. So they are as good as down. Walsall and the Daggers have it all to play for next Saturday although there is an outside chance Notts County could get dragged in.
The top of League two hasn't changed. Still only Bury and Chesterfield that we know to be definite opponents come August.

So next Saturday is our final game of the season. Both ourselves and Hartlepool have nothing to play for and as a football match, will probably be very quickly forgotten. Unlike the pre match drink in the Rose of Denmark. Plenty of the Charlton twitterers are gathering for a few jars of London Pride. I for one, cant wait.

Happy Day!

Today i watched the Royal Wedding. A few years back, everybody would have been glued to the only tv set in the street to watch it as well. Unfortunately, a lot of the younger generation today saw this as nothing more than an extra day off work. Alf Garnett would have had a field day today! I love events like these, not just weddings, but events that show the rest of the world what a wonderful country we live in, and what a fantastic city London is.
Today was a day when we could shout out loud how proud we are to be British! From the flags lining the route, the hero's that are our armed forces in their dress uniforms to the wonderful fly past from the Battle of Britain hero's, the Lancaster, Hurricane and Spitfire. Each of these moments brought real tears to my eyes of great pride and loyal belonging to our dear kingdom. Unlike the idiots calling themselves nationalists, who wave the flag with racist undertones that we had to endure in Brighton last weekend. No, today is what it means to be British.
As far as the wedding went, everything had a real wow factor and was just as it should be. I love weddings. It is for me, a union very worthy of celebrating, especially in this day and age when people's views on it have shifted so dramatically.
I've been lucky enough to have two wedding days. They rate higher than the play off final in 98, but below the day i allowed Jesus into the driving seat in my life. A close second though.
When i became a widower, i never would have guessed I'd be fortunate enough to fall in love with a second gorgeous lady but i did.  Not a day goes past without me realizing how lucky i am, that's why a wedding photo is always pictured on this blog. Every time i now see a young couple commit to each other i always compare it to ours, even the royals. Yes, like many others, i was covered in goose bumps when they sang 'Jerusalem', but then i was when we sang 'The Stand' (check out Hillsong) at ours.
Whenever i hear 'From the inside out' ,again Hillsong, i picture Heidi walking down the aisle and well up. Heidi planned ours by herself and could not have got any one part better than it was. A good effort today, but ours is still the best!
So today has been a day of pride. The good pride that stands those hairs up on the back of your neck. There is a bad pride also. That's the one that gets in my way so often, the one that prevents me dropping my guard. No one thing stops me advancing in my christian walk more. that however is another story.
Today isn't about me, today is about a beautiful young girl and her knight in shining armour, who have today in front of God, the most important guest in attendance, declared their love for each till death. Well done.

And with that i raise a glass......................................to the happy couple!!!

It ain't ARF hot mum.

It's been quite an Easter. The weather has been better and hotter than any of us could have wished for, and with it, people's smiles have been so much bigger.
None more so than those rugged Charlton fans today who saw the Addicks put in a performance of note against play off hopefuls Rochdale.
Cameo roles have been the staple diet of Nathan Eccleston up untill this weekend, yet today both him and Dean Parrett put in strong performances which would warrant places in Chris Powell's plans, if they weren't due to return to their parent clubs this summer.
Encouraging football then to see the season out and two great team performances over this Easter weekend. Perhaps next season really could be ours, it's not all doom and gloom. For Swindon it is though. We sometimes forget how tough times are for others. We've all got an attitude that as Charlton fans, we are all long suffering and although we hope our children will follow in the tradition, we wonder if its fair to put them through it.
This time last year we were getting excited about the prospect of the play offs and another day out at Wembley. As we all know, Swindon stood in our way. Twelve months on, and that side have been relegated to Division four. They were victims of giant killing Crawley in the FA cup, now they'll have to go back there as equals. Paul Hart is only contracted to the end of the season and i doubt he'll be keen to take the reigns permanently. We think we've got some rebuilding to do!
We did need to go into the summer on a high otherwise we could be carrying on in August where we left off in May. It's just a question of how much the cast will change as we know it will. Can we keep the headliners, and will the new supporting roles be of the necessary quality.
The whole 'you have been watching' thing really struck me today. It sounds like you've seen them for the last time, and in two weeks time we may well have.


Today had a very strange twist. I couldn't make the game as i had already arranged to meet friends in Belvedere. I left them, and with Heidi on the back, rode past The Valley at four o'clock on our way home. Very strange to be there but not be there.
No, instead , we were the privileged guests of Paul Raisey and his wife Kay to their daughter Charlotte's birthday party.

Charlotte has been back home for a short while after a lengthy stay in hospital. Paul had kept the whole Charlton twitter community up to date with her condition and I'd told him that she was on my prayer list.
Charlotte lives with her friends Kerrie and Nik. They've all known each other for years and have a great team of carers. They call themselves the Abbey Road Friends and ARF have a blog page which i strongly recommend as a great read. http://abbeyroadfriends.blogspot.com/

It was a real honour to meet Paul and his family today. It's easy to say that you don't realise how easy we have it until you meet others in a different situation. All i know is, there was so much love in that flat today. Charlotte is a very beautiful, special young lady with an awesome family around her. Once again, through Charlton, I've been lucky enough to meet some of the loveliest of people.
Thanks again Paul!

Pirate Radio

While the lads were running around in this beautiful Easter sunshine, i was at home laying a carpet in the lodgers room. Needed to be done while she was on holiday, so the hottest weekend of the year was an ideal opportunity!
Quick glances on twitter and a quick check on the radio were my efforts to keep up to pace on a game of real drama.
Being Charlton, we were never likely to tick these remaining fixtures off in a quiet, mundane fashion and an early goal for the visitors through Paul Benson, starting up front alongside Nathan Eccleston, was a great way to start. Eccleston, getting a very rare chance to play more than fifteen minutes, was in for the rested Bradley Wright-Phillips. Another rare starter was Kyel Reid. The second half was going to be one he'd remember, as will the travelling red and white army, for a long time to come.
A goal up at the interval, no-one would have predicted how the events would then unravel. Charlton doubled their lead only a minute into the second half. It was a peach of a goal from Reid from all accounts and one worthy of winning us the three points. The pirates, and the ref (possibly the biggest pirate of them all) had other ideas though.
Just around the hour mark, the addicks who were cruising had the wonder goal hero sent off for two bookings in about the same amount of minutes. Not much time passed before Semedo also fell foul of the man in charge and we were going to have to cling on with only nine.
As it turned out, even Sir Chris was sent packing to the stands, maybe a little too much sun for everybody. Bristol Rovers pulled the two goals back to take a share of the points, which they needed a lot more than us in their relegation battle.
It was nice to see that over 400 addicks made the trip west on this rather meaningless fixture. Although we fell foul of the pirates at the end, they certainly got value for their money. Three to go then...

Whilst we've got a sort of link to the radio..............ok, a very poor link.....
there has been a song playing at work on the radio every day that has really managed to get stuck in my head. It's called 'If you Wanna' and it's by The Vaccines. The name vaccines rang a bell with me so i checked my iTunes library to confirm. Yes, i had a track by this same group already.
Every week, iTunes have a single of the week which you can download for free. The other week it was a song called 'Norgaard'. I heard my thirty seconds, liked it, and downloaded it. So now I'm keen on two songs, and the album is available for under a fiver, well, what are you going to do?
It has got to be one of the freshest albums for ages. Its got the energy and catchiness of The Ramones, yet has wailing guitars and an almost dark edge which is so reminiscent of The Jesus and Mary Chain.
Wrecking Bar (Ra Ra Ra ) is the opening song. In true Ramones style, it's only one and a half minutes long and really ought to start 1-2-3-4 !!!
If you wanna follows, and to put it into perspective, this catchy single is in fact one of the weakest tracks on the album. Wetsuit, All in White, and Family Friend will, i think, go on to be Vaccine classics if the band don't turn out to become one hit wonders.
Out of twelve tracks, only three are over three minutes long. This is Indie with a large hint of punk energy. Listen to this album, it really will make an excellent addition to your collection. I was so surprised it's their debut album, it's going to be a future classic for sure.


With a cool, cool breeze and dirty knees,
I rest on childhood memories.
We all got old at breakneck speed,
Slow it down, go easy on me...................

Heidi's Art

Spending an afternoon off work looking at some of the great paintings my wife has created, and i got to thinking, why keep it to myself. So here is some of it.
Painted on canvas, material, walls,  and some created on the computer, she does seem to turn her hand to anything.
ENJOY !!!!

This is an old college piece.

As is this huge piece. God bless these children.

No aerosols or stencils here.

The art of photoshop.

An old friend

This she did for a t-shirt design for me.

That's the wall of our lounge.

Another she did of/for me.

This is one of three large canvas pieces for the coffee lounge of our church.

One of the extravagance pieces....

And with the other two on the wall of Ginger Moo in Crawley.

And to finish, a small sample of the stuff she often has to produce for myself and the rest of the children's ministry at church.

I hope this has given you all a little pleasure at the start of this Easter weekend.

Have a great Easter and let's hope for three points in Bristol Saturday.